Open letter to members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament on the revision of the EU ETS

A coalition of 31 environmental organisations calls for a meaningful carbon price and reformed funding mechanisms within the EU ETS revision to phase out fossil fuels and support a just transition in Europe.

• The current EU ETS carbon price of approximately EUR 6 is considered too low to drive investment in carbon-free technologies and may instead support coal infrastructure. The authors propose tightening the ETS cap through a higher linear reduction factor, re-basing the starting point, and cancelling surplus to catalyse a transition to renewables.
• The letter argues that funding under Article 10c of the EU ETS Directive has been largely misused to subsidise coal power plants in Central and Eastern Europe. It recommends that the Article 10c derogation not be extended beyond 2020 and instead be merged into the Modernisation Fund to reduce administrative complexity and fragmentation.
• The authors demand strict investment criteria for the Modernisation Fund, specifically that new or existing coal generation, including coal-powered CHP, be ineligible for funding. They advocate for Emission Performance Standard criteria to prioritise sustainable renewable energy, energy saving technologies, and electricity grid upgrades.
• To ensure the credibility of investments, the letter proposes that the Modernisation Fund's investment board include an equal number of beneficiary and non-beneficiary Member States. Additionally, it calls for the establishment of a Just Transition Fund to support communities and regions moving away from coal.

APA

Carbon Market Watch (2016). Open letter to members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament on the revision of the EU ETS. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/open-letter-to-members-of-the-committee-on-environment-public-health-and-food-safety-of-the-european-parliament-on-the-revision-of-the-eu-ets/

Chicago

Carbon Market Watch. Open letter to members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament on the revision of the EU ETS. 2016. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/open-letter-to-members-of-the-committee-on-environment-public-health-and-food-safety-of-the-european-parliament-on-the-revision-of-the-eu-ets/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Carbon Market Watch |title=Open letter to members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament on the revision of the EU ETS |date=21 November 2016 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/open-letter-to-members-of-the-committee-on-environment-public-health-and-food-safety-of-the-european-parliament-on-the-revision-of-the-eu-ets/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{carbonmarketwatch2016open, author = {{Carbon Market Watch}}, title = {{Open letter to members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament on the revision of the EU ETS}}, publisher = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2016}, month = nov, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/open-letter-to-members-of-the-committee-on-environment-public-health-and-food-safety-of-the-european-parliament-on-the-revision-of-the-eu-ets/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }